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ONE DAY Part I

The Prince tore the missive fiercely from
its envelope, and scowled at the mocking glint of the royal crown so heavily
embossed at the top of the paper. What a toy it was, he thought, to cost so
much, and eventually to mean so little! Roughly translated, the letter ran
asfollows:

"Your
Royal Highness will be gratified to learn that at last asatisfactory alliance
has been arranged between the Princess Elodie ofAustria and your royal self. It
is the desire of both courts andcouncils that the marriage shall be solemnized
on the fifteenth of theMay following your twenty-first birthday, at which time
the coronation ceremony takes place that is to place the crown of the kingdom
upon the head of the son of our beloved and ever-to-be-regretted
Imperatorskoye. The Court and Council extend greetings and congratulations upon
the notfar distant approach of both auspicious events to your Royal Highness,
which cannot fail to afford the utmost satisfaction in every detail to the
ever-beautiful-and-never-to-be-sufficiently beloved Prince Paul.

"Imperator-to-be,
we salute thee. We kiss thy feet. "

The letter
was sealed with the royal crest and signed by the Regent--theBoy's uncle--the
Grand Duke Peter, his mother's brother, who had been his guardian and protector
almost from his birth.

The
young prince knew that his uncle loved him, knew that the Grand Duke desired
nothing on earth so much as the happiness of his beloved sister's only son--and
yet at this crisis of the Boy's life, even his uncle was as powerless to help
as was Paul Verdayne, the Englishman. "The
Princess Elodie!" he grumbled. "Who the devil is this
PrincessElodie, anyway? Austrian blood has no particular charm for me!
Theymight at least have told me something a little more definite out the woman
they have picked out to be the mother of my children. A manusually likes to
look an animal over before he purchases!"

Known to
London society as Monsieur Zalenska, the Prince had come up to town with the
Verdaynes, and was apparently enjoying to the utmost the frivolities of London
life.

At a
fashionable garden party he sat alone, in a seclusion he had longsought and had
finally managed to secure, behind a hedge of hawthorn where none but lovers,
and men and women troubled as he was troubled, cared to conceal themselves.

The letter,
long-expected and dreaded, had finally crossed the continent to his hand. It
was only the written confirmation of the sentence Fate had pronounced upon him,
even as it had pronounced similar sentences upon princes and potentates since
the beginning of thrones and kingdoms.

While the
Prince--or Paul Zalenska, as I will now call him--sat in his brooding brown
study, clutching the imperial letter tightly in his younghand, his attention
was arrested by the sound of voices on the otherside of the hawthorn
hedge.

He listened
idly, at first, to what seemed to be a one-sided conversation, in a dull,
emotionless feminine voice--a discourse on fashion, society chit-chat, and
hopeless nonentities, interspersed with bits of gossip. Could women never talk
about anything else? he thought impatiently.

But his
displeasure did not seem to affect the course of things at all. The voice,
completely unconscious of the aversion it aroused in the invisible listener,
continued its dreary, expressionless monotone.

"What
makes you so silent, Opal? You haven't said a word to-day that youdidn't
absolutely have to say. If all American girls are as dreamy asyou, I wonder why
our English lords are so irresistibly attracted acrossthe water when in search
of brides!"

And then the
Boy on the other side of the hedge felt his sluggish pulsequicken, and almost
started to his feet, impelled by a sudden thrill ofdelight; for another voice
had spoken--a voice of such infinite charmand sweetness and vitality, yet with
languorous suggestion of emotionalheights and depths, that he felt a vague
sense of disappointment whenthe magnetic notes finally died away.

"Brides?"
the voice echoed, with a lilt of girlish laughter runningthrough the words.
"You mean '_bribes_, ' don't you? For I assure you, dear cousin, it is the
metallic clink of American gold, and nothingelse, that lures your great men
over the sea. As for my silence, _mabelle_, I have been uncommunicative because
there really seemed nothingat all worth saying. I can't accustom myself to
small-talk--I can't evenlisten to it patiently. I always feel a wild impulse to
fly far, faraway, where I can close my ears to it all and listen to my own
thoughts. I'm sorry if I disappoint you, Alice--I seem to disappoint
everybodythat I would like to please--but I assure you, laugh at my dreams as
youmay, to me my dream-life is far more attractive and beautiful than whatyou
term Life. Forgive me if I hurt you, cousin. I'm peculiarlyconstituted, perhaps,
but I don't like this twaddle, and I can't helpit! Everything in England is so
beautiful, and yet its society seemsso--so hopelessly unsatisfactory to one who
longs to _live!_"

"To
live, Opal? We are not dead, surely! What do you mean by life?"

And so her
name was Opal! How curiously the name suited the voice! TheBoy, as he listened,
felt that no other name could possibly havematched that voice--the opal, that
glorious gem in which all the firesof the sun, the iridescent glories of the
rainbow, and the coldbrilliance of ice and frost and snow seemed to blend and
crystallize. All this, and more, was in that mysteriously fascinating
voice.

"To
live, Alice?" echoed the voice again. "To live? Why, to live is
to_feel!_--to feel every emotion of which the human soul is capable, torise to
the heights of love, and knowledge, and power; to sink--if needbe--to the
deepest depths of despair, but, at all costs, at all hazards, to _live!_--to
experience in one's own nature all the reality andfullness of the deathless
emotions of life!"

The voice
sank almost to the softness of a whisper, yet even then wasvibrant, alive,
intense.

"Ah,
Alice, from my childhood up, I have dreamed of life and longed forit. What life
really is, each must decide for himself, must he not?Some, they say, sleep
their way through a dreamless existence, andnever, never wake to realities.
Alice, I have sometimes wondered if thatwas to be my fate, have wondered and
wondered until I have cried out inreal terror at the hideous prospect! Surely
Fate could not be so cruelas to implant such a desperate desire in a soul that
never was to knowits fulfilment. Could it, Alice? Tell me, _could_ it?"

The Boy
held his breath now.

Who was this
girl, anyhow, who seemed to express his own thoughts asaccurately as he himself
could have done? He was bored no longer. He wasroused, stirred, awakened--and
intensely interested. It was as thoughthe voice of his own soul spoke to him in
a dream.

The cold,
lifeless voice now chimed in again. In his impatience the Boyclenched his fists
and shut his teeth together hard. Why didn't she keepstill? He didn't want to
miss a single note he might have caught of thevoice--that other! Why did this
nonentity--for one didn't have to seeher to be sure that she was that--have to
interrupt and rob him of hispleasure?

"I
don't understand you, Opal, " she was saying. (Of course she didn't,
thought the Boy--how could she?) "I am sure that I live. And yet I
havenever felt that way--thank goodness! It's vulgar to feel too deeply, Mamma
used to say, and as I have grown older, I can see that she wasright. The best
people never show any excess of emotion. That is fortragedy queens, operatic
stars, and--the women we do not talk about!Ladies cultivate repose!"

"And
yet, Alice, you are--married!"

"Married?--of
course!--why not?" and the eavesdropper fancied he couldsee the wide-open
gaze of well-bred English surprise that accompaniedthe words. "One has to
marry, of course. That is what we are createdfor. But one doesn't make a fuss
about it. It's only a custom--aceremony--and doesn't change existence much for
most women, if theychoose sensibly.

Of
course there is always the chance of a_mésalliance_! A woman has to risk that.
"

"And
you don't--love?"

The Boy was
struck by a note that was almost horror in the opaline voiceso near him.

"Love?
Why, Opal, of course we do! It's easy to love, you know, when aman is decent
and half-way good to one. I am sure I think a great dealof Algernon; but I dare
say I should have thought as much of any otherman I had happened to marry. That
is a wife's duty!"

"_Duty!_--and you call that love?" The
horror in the tones had nowchanged to scorn.

"You
have strange ideas of life, Opal. I should be afraid to indulgethem if I were
you--really I should! You have lived so much in booksthat you seem to have a
very garbled idea of the world. Fiction is aptto be much of a fairy tale, a
crazy exaggeration of what living reallyconsists of!"

"_Afraid?_
Why should I be afraid? I am an American girl, remember, andAmericans are
afraid of nothing--nothing! Come, cousin, tell to me, ifyou can, why I should
be afraid. "

"Oh, I
don't know! really I don't!" There was a troubled, perplexed notein the
English voice now. "Such notions are apt to get girls intotrouble, and
lead them to some unhappy fate. Too much 'life'--as youcall it--must mean
suffering, and sorrow, and many tears--and maybe, _sin_!"

There was a
shocked note in the voice of the young English matron asshe added the last
word, and her voice sank to a whisper. But PaulZalenska heard, and
smiled. "Suffering, and sorrow, and many tears, " repeated
the American girl, musingly, "and maybe--sin!" Then she went on,
firmly, "Very well, Alice, give me the suffering and sorrow, and many
tears--and the sin, too, if it must be, for we are all sinners of greater or
lessdegree--but at any rate, give me life! My life may still be far off inthe future,
but when the time comes, I shall certainly know, and--Ishall _live_!"

"No,
you don't say those things, you cold English women! You do not even_feel_ them!
As for sin, Alice, to my mind there can be no worse sinunder heaven than you
commit when you give yourself to a man whom you donot love better than you
could possibly love any other. Oh, it is asin--it _must_ be--to sell yourself
like that! It's no wonder, I think, that your husbands are so often driven to
'the women we do not talkabout' for--consolation!"

"Opal!
Opal! hush! What _are_ you saying? You really--but see! isn'tthat Algernon
crossing the terrace? He is probably looking for us. "

"And
like a dutiful English wife, you mustn't fail to obey, I suppose!Lead the way,
cousin mine, and I'll promise to follow you with duedignity and decorum. "

And the
rustle of silken skirts heralded the departure of the ladiesaway from the hedge
and beyond Paul's hearing.

Then he too
started at an eager, restless pace for the centre of thecrowd. He had quite
forgotten the future so carefully arranged for him, and was off in hot pursuit
of--what? He did not know! He only knew thathe had heard a voice, and--he
followed!

As he
rejoined the guests, he looked with awakened interest into everyface, listened
with eager intensity to every voice. But all in vain. Itdid not occur to
him that he might easily learn from his hostess theidentity of her American
guest; and even if the thought had presenteditself to him, he would never have
acted upon it. The experience washis alone, and he would have been unwilling to
share it with any one.

He was no
longer bored as earlier in the afternoon, and he carried theassurance of
enthusiasm and interest in his every glance and motion. People smiled at the
solitary figure, and whispered that he must havelost Verdayne. But for once in
his life, the Boy was not looking for hisfriend.

But neither
did he find the voice!

Usually
among the first to depart on such occasions as these, this timehe remained
until almost all the crowd had made their adieux. And it waswith a keen sense
of disappointment that he at last entered his carriagefor the home of the Verdaynes.
He was hearing again and again in thewords of the voice, as it echoed through
his very soul, "When my timecomes, I shall certainly know, and I
shall--_live!_"

The letter
in his pocket no longer scorched the flesh beneath. He hadforgotten its very
existence, nor did he once think of the PrincessElodie of Austria. What had
happened to him?

Had he
fallen in love with a--voice?

It was May
at Verdayne Place, and May at Verdayne Place was altogetherdifferent from May
in any other part of the world. The skies were of afar deeper and richer blue;
the flowers reached a higher state offragrant and rainbow-hued perfection; the
sun shining through the greenof the trees was tempered to just the right degree
of shine and shadow. To an Englishman, home is the beginning and the end of the
world, andPaul Verdayne was a typical Englishman.

To be sure,
it had not always been so, but Paul had outlived hisvagabond days and had
become thoroughly domesticated; yet there had beena time in his youth when the
wandering spirit had filled his soul, whenthe love of adventure had lent wings
to his feet, and the glory ofromance had lured him to the lights and shadows of
other skies thanthese. But Verdayne was older now, very much older! He had
lived hislife, he said, and settled down!

In the shade
of the tall trees of the park, two men were drinking in thebeauties of the
season, in all the glory and splendor of itsever-changing, yet ever-enduring
loveliness. One of them was past forty, the ripeness of middle age and the
general air of a well-spent, well-directed, and fully-developed life lending to
his face and form anunusual distinction--even in that land of distinguished
men. Hiscompanion was a boy of twenty, straight and tall and proud, carryinghimself
with the regal grace of a Greek god. He was a strong, handsome, healthy,
well-built, and well-instructed boy, a boy at whom any one wholooked once would
be sure to look the second time, even though he couldnot tell exactly wherein
the peculiar charm lay. Both men were fair ofhair and blue-eyed, with clear,
clean skins and well-bred English faces, and the critical observer could
scarcely fail to notice how curiouslythey resembled each other. Indeed, the
younger of the pair might easilyhave been the replica of the elder's
youth.

When they
spoke, however, the illusion of resemblance disappeared. Inthe voice of the Boy
was a certain vibrant note that was entirelylacking in the deeper tones of the
man--not an accent, nor yet aninflection, but still a quality that lent a
subtle suggestion of foreignshores. It was an expressive voice, neither
languorous nor undulyforceful, but strangely magnetic, and adorably rich and
full, andmusical, thrilling its hearers with its suggestion of latent
physicaland spiritual force.

On the
afternoon of which I write, those two were facing a crisis thatmade them blind
to everything of lesser import. Paul Verdayne--the man--realized this to the
full. His companion--the Boy--was dimly but justas acutely conscious of it. The
question had come at last--the questionthat Paul Verdayne had been
dreading for years.

"Uncle
Paul, " the Boy was saying, "what relation are you to me? You arenot
really my uncle, though I have been taught to call you so after thisquaint
English fashion of yours. I know it is something of a secret, butI know no
more! We are closer comrades, it seems to me--you and I--thanany others in all
the world. We always understand each other, somehow, almost without words--is
it not so? I even bear your name, and I amproud of it, because it is yours. But
why must there be so much mysteryabout our real relationship? Won't you tell me
just what I am to you?"

The
question, long-looked-for as it was, found the elder man allunprepared. Is any
one ever ready for any dire calamity, howevercertainly expected? He paced up
and down under the tall trees of thepark and for a time did not answer. Then he
paused and laid his handupon the shoulder of the Boy with a tenderness of touch
that provedbetter than any words how close was the bond between them.

"Tell
you what you are to me! I could never, never do that! You areeverything to me,
everything!"

The Boy
made a motion as if to speak, but the man forestalled him.

"We're
jolly good friends, aren't we--the very best of companions? Inall the world
there is no man, woman or child that is half so near anddear to me as you. Men
don't usually talk about these things to oneanother, you know, Boy; but, though
I am a bachelor, you see, I feeltoward you as most men feel toward their sons.
What does the meredefining of the relationship matter? Could we possibly be any
more toeach other than we are?"

Paul
Verdayne seated himself on a little knoll beneath the shade of agiant oak. The
Boy looked at him with the wistfulness of an infinitequestion in his
gaze.

"No,
no, Boy! Some time, perhaps--yes, certainly--you shall know all, all! But that
time has not yet come, and for the present it is best thatthings should rest as
they are. Trust us, Boy--trust me--and bepatient!"

"Patient!"
The Boy laughed a full, ringing laugh, as he threw himself onthe grass at his
companion's feet. "I have never learned the word! Couldyou be
patient, Uncle Paul, when youth was all on fire in your heart, with your own
life shrouded in mystery? Could you, I say, be patientthen?"

"Perhaps
not, Boy, perhaps not! But it is for you, " he continued, "foryou,
Boy, to make the best of that life of yours, which you are pleasedto think
clouded in such tantalizing mystery. It is for you to developevery God-given
faculty of your being that all of us that love you mayhave the happiness of
seeing you perform wisely and well the missionupon which you have been sent to
this kingdom of yours to accomplish. Boy! every true man is a king in the might
of his manhood, but upon youis bestowed a double portion of that universal
royalty. This is athrone-worshipping world we are living in, Paul, and it means
even morethan you can realize to be a prince of the blood!"

The Boy
looked around the park apprehensively. What if someone heard?For this straight
young sapling, who was only the "Boy" to PaulVerdayne, was to the
world at large an heir to a throne, a king who hadbeen left in infancy the sole
ruler of his kingdom.

His
visits to Verdayne Place were _incognito_. He did like to throwaside the purple
now and then and be the real live boy he was at heart. He did enjoy to the full
his occasional opportunities, unhampered bythe trappings and obligations of
royalty.

"A
prince of the blood!" he echoed scornfully. "Bah!--what is
that?Merely an accident of birth!"

"No,
not an accident, Paul! Nothing in the world ever is that. Everyfragment of life
has its completing part somewhere, given its place inthe scheme of the universe
by intricate design--always by _design!_ Asfor the duties of your kingdom, my
Prince, it is not like you to takethem so lightly. "

"I
know! I know! Yet everybody might have been born a prince. It is farmore to be
a man!"

"True
enough, Boy! yet everybody might not have been born to yourposition. Only you
could have been given the heritage that is yours! MyBoy, yours is a mission, a
responsibility, from the Creator of LifeHimself. Everybody can follow--but only
God's chosen few can lead! Andyou--oh, Boy! yours is a birthright above that of
all other princes--ifyou only knew!"

The young
prince looked wistfully upward into the eyes of the elder man.

"Tell
me, Uncle Paul! Dmitry always speaks of my birth with a reverenceand awe quite
out of proportion to its possible consequence--poor oldman. And once even the
Grand Duke Peter spoke of my 'divine origin'though he could not be coaxed or
wheedled into committing his wise selfany further. Now you, yourself the most
reserved and secretive ofindividuals when it pleases you to be so, have just
been surprised intosomething of the same expression. Do you wonder that I long
to unravelthe mystery that you are all so determined to keep from me? I can
learnnothing at home--absolutely nothing! They glorify my mother--God blessher
memory! Everyone worships her! But they never speak of you, and theyare silent,
too, about my father. They simply won't tell me a thingabout him, so I don't
imagine that he could have been a very good king!_Was_ he, Uncle Paul? Did you
know him?"

"I
never knew the king, Boy!--never even saw him!"

"But
you must have heard--"

"Nothing,
Boy, that I can tell you--absolutely nothing!"

Verdayne had
risen again and was once more pacing back and forth underthe trees, as was his
wont when troubled with painful memories.

"But my
mother--you knew _her_!"

"Yes,
yes--I knew your mother!"

"Tell
me about her!"

A dull,
hopeless agony came into the eyes of the older man. And so hisGethsemane had
come to him again! Every life has this garden to passthrough--some, alas! again
and yet again! And Paul Verdayne had thoughtthat he had long since drained his
cup of misery to the dregs. He knewbetter now.

"Yes, I
will tell you of your mother, Boy, " he said, and there was astrained,
guarded note in his voice which his companion's quick ear didnot fail to catch.
"But you must be patient if you wish to hear whatlittle there is, after
all, that I can tell you. You must remember, myBoy, that it is a long time
since your mother--died--and men of my agesometimes--forget!"

"I will
remember, " the Boy said, gently.

But as he
looked up into the face of his friend, something in his hearttold him that Paul
Verdayne did _not_ forget! And somehow the older manfelt confident that the Boy
knew, and was strangely comforted by thesilent sympathy between them which both
felt, but neither could express.

"Your
mother, Boy, was the noblest and most beautiful woman that evergraced a throne.
Everyone who knew her must have said that! You are verylike her, Paul--not in
appearance, a mistake of Fate to be everlastinglydeplored, but in spirit you
are her living counterpart. Ah! you have agreat example to live up to, Boy, in
attempting to follow her footsteps!There was never a queen like
her--never!"

The young
prince followed with the deepest absorption the words of theman who had known
his mother, hanging upon the story with the breathlessinterest of a child in
some fairy tale.

"She
knew life as it is given few women to know it. She was not morethan
thirty-five, I think, when you were born, but she had crowded intothose years
more knowledge of the world, in all its myriad phases, thanothers seem to
absorb during their allotted three score and ten. And herknowledge was not of
the world alone, but of the heart. She was full ofideals of advancement, of
growth, of doing and being something worthythe greatest endeavor, exerting
every hope and ambition to the utmostfor the future splendor of her
kingdom--your kingdom now. How she lovedyou!--what splendid achievements she
expected of you! how she prayedthat you might be grand, and great, and
true!" "Did you always know
her?" "Always?--no. Only for
three weeks, Boy!" "Three weeks!--three
little weeks! How strange, then, that you shouldhave learned so much about her
in that short space of time! She mustindeed have made a strong impression upon
you!" "Impression, you say?
Boy, all that I am or ever expect to become--allthat I know or ever expect to
learn--all that I have done or ever expectto accomplish--I owe to your mother.
She was the one inspiration of mylife. Until I knew her, I was a nonentity. It
was she who awakenedme--who taught me how to live! Three weeks! Child!
child!--" He caught himself sharply
and bit his lip, forcing back the impetuouswords he had not meant to say. The
silence of years still shrouded thosemysterious three weeks, and the time had
not yet come when that silencecould be broken. What had he said? What possessed
the Boy to-day tocling so persistently to this hitherto forbidden subject? "Where did you meet
her, Uncle?" "At Lucerne!" "Lucerne!" echoed
the Boy, his blue eyes growing dreamy with musing. "That says nothing to
me--nothing! and yet--you will laugh at me, Iknow, but I sometimes get the most
tantalizing impression that Iremember my mother. It is absurd, of course--I
suppose I could notpossibly remember her--and yet there is such a haunting,
vague sense ofclose-clinging arms, of an intensely white and tender face
bending overme--sometimes in the radiance of day and again in the soft shadows
ofnight, but always, always alight with love--of kisses, soft and warm, and yet
often tearful--and of black, lustrous hair, over which therealways seems to
shine a halo--a very coronet of triumphant motherhood. " Verdayne's lips moved, but no
sound came from them to voice thepassionate cry in his heart, "My Queen,
my Queen!" "I suppose it is only
a curious dream! It must be, of course! But it isa very real vision to me, and
I would not part with it for the world. Uncle, do you know, I can never look
upon the pictured face of a Madonnawithout being forcibly reminded of this
vision of my mother--the motherI can see only in dreams!" Verdayne found it growing
harder and harder for him to speak. "I do not think that
strange, Boy. Others would not understand it, but Ido. She was so intensely a
mother that the spirit of the great HolyMother must have been at all times
hovering closely about her! Herdeepest desires centred about her son. You were
the embodiment of thegreatest, sweetest joys--if not the only real joys--of her
strangelyunhappy life, and her whole thought, her one hope, was for you. In
yoursoul must live all the unrealized hopes and crucified ideals of thewoman
who, always every inch a queen, was never more truly regal than inthe supreme
hour that crowned her your mother. "

"And am
I like her, Uncle Paul? Am I really like her?"

"So
much so, Boy, that she sometimes seems to live again in you. Likeher, you
believe so thoroughly in the goodness and greatness of a God--in the beauty and
glory of the world fraught with lessons of lifeand death--in the omnipotence of
Fate--in the truth and power andgrandeur of overmastering love. You believe in
the past, in all thedreams and legends of the Long Ago still relived in the
Now, in thecapabilities of the human mind, the kingship of the soul. Your voice
ishers, every tone and cadence is as her own voice repeating her ownwords. Be
glad, Paul, that you are like your mother, and hope that withthe power to think
her thoughts and dream lier dreams, you may also havethe power to love as she
loved, and, if need be, die her death!" "But you think the same
thoughts, Uncle Paul. You believe all Ibelieve!"

"Because
she taught me, Paul--because she taught me! I slept the sleepof the blind and
deaf and soulless until her touch woke my soul intobeing. You have always been
alive to the joy of the world and the beautyof living. Your soul was born with
your body and lived purposefully fromthe very beginning of things. You were
born for a purpose and thatpurpose showed itself even in infancy. " A silence fell between the
two men. A long time they sat in thatsympathetic communion, each busy with his
own thoughts. The older Paulwas lost in memories of the past, for his life lay
all behind him--theyounger Paul was indulging in many dreams of a roseate
future, for hislife was all ahead of him. It was a friendship that
the world often wondered about--this strangeintimacy between Paul Verdayne, the
famous Member of Parliament, and theyoung man from abroad who called himself
Paul Zalenska. None knewexactly where Monsieur Zalenska came from, and as they
had long agolearned the futility of questioning either of the men about
personalaffairs, had at last reconciled themselves to never finding out.
Everyone suspected that the Boy was a scion of rank--and some went sofar as to
say of royalty, but beyond the fact that every May he camewith his faithful,
foreign-looking attendant to Verdayne Place and spentthe summer months with the
Verdayne family, nothing definite wasactually known. His elderly attendant
certainly spoke some beastlyforeign jargon and went by the equally beastly
foreign name of Vasili. He was known to worship his young master and to attend
him with the most marked servility, but he was never questioned, and had he
been, would certainly have told no tales. The parents of Paul
Verdayne--Sir Charles and Lady Henrietta--were very fond of their young guest,
and made much of his annual visits. As for Paul himself, he never seemed to be
perfectly happy anywhere if the young fellow were out of his sight. He had made himself very
much distinguished, had this Paul Verdayne. He had found out how to get the
most out of his life and accomplish the utmost good for himself and his England
with the natural endowments of his energetic and ambitious personality. He had
become a famous orator, a noted statesman, a man of brain as well as brawn.
People were glad to listen when he talked. He inspired them with the idea--so
nearly extinctin this day and age of the world--that life after all was very
much worth the living. He stirred languid pulses with a dormant enthusiasm. He
roused torpid brains to thought. He had ideas and had also a way of making
other people share those ideas. England was proud of Paul Verdayne, as she had
good reason to be. And he was only forty-three years old even now. What might
he not accomplish in the future for the land to which he devoted all his
talents, his tireless, well-directed activities?